THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

Wellington Independent, Volume VI, Issue 478, 11 May 1850, Page 3

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

{From the Times, December 18J It is now two or three years since a very grand design was very quietly announced under the name of the Canterbury Settlement in New Zealand. It was to be purely a-Church of England community, and the prominent part taken in the project by Mr. Godley, a man of great colonial information, gave some assurrance tliat it was not a mere pious Utopia. Some remarks which we ventured to make on it were suggested rather by kind wishes than sanguine expectations, and, to say the truth, we hardly expected ever to hear of the scheme except in a glowing prospectus and a pompous list of patrons, It is, then, with agreeable surprise that we find the Canterbury Settlement an actual topographical division of New Zealand, consisting of a fertile plain as large as Yorkshire; wherein we see ports and cities laid out, some extent of country surveyed, that mutton produced—too fat for the fatidious crew of the Acheron, and Homer, Horace, and Tennyson quoted in a region where men thirty year ago were roasting and eating one another. The Roman poet knew, by the light of genius, that all nations would one day learn his deathless verses ; but his enumeration of his readers, bold as it was, did not include either a country of canni bals or the Antipodes. We must now add them to the list. A letter, from which we quote largely in another column presents us with the spectacle of a Christian bishop, and au accomplished scholar, standing among the rude huts, the illfenced orchards, and the straggling flocks of an infant colony, as the representative of learning and religion, and inviting the the generous and adventurous to follow him across the globe. When a man of high position, wealth, or acquirements rises up on a platform, or sits down in his library, to urge his countrymen to go off to the colonies, he exposes himself to the objection that he is recommending to others what he will not do himself. Bishop Selwyn says—Come, He has tied himself for life to the; simple duties and still simpler honours of an Australion bishopric, and knows by an experience of some years the.sort of community and style of existence to whirjh he is inviting his countrymen. Colonies have ever been experiments, both from the peculiar circumstance oi their respective foundations and from the various tastes of their , founders. No rational person, therefore, will quarrel wtib, a settlement which assumes a distinct and experimental character. New England was the work of Puritan fanatics, Canada of Roman Catholic devotees. In both cases enthusiasm led to many evils, but undoubtedly gave an additional impulse and a consolidation to the several societies. The simple peasants of La Vendee and the stern English Cah-inists flocked gladly to the regions where their respective creeds enjoyed an undisputed supremacy, and where chiefs and pastors of note had already led the way. To pass to a modern instauce, the Mormon delusion testifies, even in a ridiculous extreme, the power of a religious idea to draw and gather men. The colouies of antiquity everywhere carried with them their gods, their Penates, their symbols, and their priests. In these days our new colonies are rather political than religious experiments. We have penal colonies for the disposal of our convicts; colonies for the cultivation of sugar and coffee, but affording no home for our own population ; commercial Colonies ; military colonies ; naval stations of a qitasi colonial character; colonies acquired by the fortune of war from our neighbours, and containing a mixed population. Of our fifty colonies scarcely two are alike. As to their religion, in some the Church of England predominates- in others various foriiis of Protestantism; in others the Roman Catholic faith ; in others Mahomedanism, Bhuddism, or idolatry. On the ground of precedent, then, there is no reason whatever why a purely Chtirch of England settlement should not be tried, though the history of all former examples warns us to expect tliat such a community, if ever so successfully founded, will suffer its congenital ills. The Church of England is pre-eminently a mixed and tolerant community. Its formularies harbour a vast variety of opinions, and even inspire a constant divergence of sentiment. As sure as there are Dissenters in England, there will also be Dissenters in tho Canterbury Settlement; nay, when the Risliop stipulates for a careful selection of " good, hardworking, honest, arid sober labourers," in too many English parishes he would couple the selector to take those who are more independent than simple in their faith. Freedom goes with intellect, and self-oor.fidence with energy. The settlement will start with Dissenters, and we can'scarcely-anticipate that its leaders

will be abb: to exclude that entire tolera- ! tion, and that equality of civil rights which, after many slruggles, have been established in this country. The Bishop's advice to the promoters and managers of the settlement, though sentimental in its tone, in its substance is most sound.. His warnings are justified by the history of every British settlement. The excessive dispersion of the industrious settlers over the country, u.ul, on the other hand, the excessive congr.g.iof idlers, hucksters, jobbers, el id't/enus omme, at the colonial port, have everywhere obstructed the progress of colonies, and lowered their moral standard. So also the indiscriminate character of the emigrants. Bishop Selwyn asks that the settlement may be organized in this country, and transported read/made and whole. With this view he insists on local, not numerical, sections. There are, it seems, to be in the first instance I three settlements, viz., at Oxford, Mandeville, and Stratford. The Oxford lea- ' der, clergyman, schoolmaster, and principal landed emigrants, are to look out for good labourers and artizans, each one m his own sphere. Thus the whole emigrant body will be already tied together by home associations before it leaves England. Consisting of such materials, the Bishop naturally hopes the company will not be the worse for the voyage, and on landing will proceed at once to its prepared quarters. If the proper sort of people can be found in this country, and if men who can afford j to buy hundreds of acres at £3 per acre] can be induced to imigrate, there is no insurmountable hitch in the rest of the design. The good Bishop, however, who discerns in some things the force of natural laws, and who sees that the supply of the various trades and professions will follow the demand, must prepare for the growth of ports and towns, perhaps to an abnormal and vicious excess. His theory is, that towns, exchanges, grocers'shops, and public-houses are. or at least ought to be, deAC'lopments of rural enterprise ; and that when the agriculturist begins to want tea and sugar, spirits, and other luxuries or refinements, cities will spring up to meet his new desires. This sounds rather like the maxim that " God madej_he country and man made the town ;" but, in fact, we believe that town is coeval with the cottage; and that the Oxonians, StratfordoitianSi aud other settlers, will stick to Port Cooper rather closer than the Bishop would desire. The design, however, is not only noble but also quite practicable iv its' main features. Any gentleman, or clergyman, who may wish to c; cape poverty, where poverty is a disgrace, or seclusion, where seclusion is a perpetual loss of caste, but who is not tempted by the general appearance of our colonies, will find ample room, a fine climate, a fertile soil, a picked body of colonists, and some of the best men of our generation in the Canterbury Settlement of New Zealand. The Bishop does not promise him either luxury or wealth. He speaks slightingly of Church dignities, buying and selling, hops, sugar, and Californian gold. He says, we believe, that no Bishop ought to have more than £saoa-year,andhisown personal expenses are'far below that standard. When the occupant of the antipodean throne of Canterbury arrives, Bishop Selwyn proposes that he shall take charge of the college, with a schoolmaster's income. His reward is not to be of that valgar soft which a man can put in the bank, lay out at interest, ininvest in the soil, or pile, up in cellars and barns ; but the mutual affection of a family. That Selwyn himself and his devoted company have obtained their reward, and are content with it. We cannot doubt; nor do we doubt that the spirit he breathes around him, and which the character of the new settlement is calculated to promote, will render " Canterbury" a congenial and agreeable home even to a more ordinary men.